So...my wife knocked the iRoast off of the kitchen counter Saturday sending it crashing to the floar and breaking not just the glass but the plastic casing on the roast chamber. He...he...he...excuse to buy a new roaster. So, Hottop or Behmor?

I want to buy the best roaster I can get. Going on price I would expect the Hottop to be much better. I don't see any reviews to that effect howerver? Is the Hottop really worth almost three times as much money? The only advantage it has seems to be the programmability/flexibility. The Behmor has the obvious advantage of larger batch size.

I went from an iRoast2 (still in one piece but sitting idle for a very long time) to a SC/TO to a Behmor. I went to the SC/TO because I wanted to roast 1lb at a time. I went from the SC/TO to the Behmor because I wanted to spend more time roasting and less time tweaking the machine in hopes of a more even roast. I went with the iRoast2 instead of a HT because I couldn't justify the cost of the HT--I was just starting out with home roasting and didn't want to make that kind of investment and then discover it wasn't for me. Of course I never looked back after that first pot of home roasted coffee.

I went with the iRoast2 instead of a HT because I couldn't justify the cost of the HT--I was just starting out with home roasting and didn't want to make that kind of investment and then discover it wasn't for me. Of course I never looked back after that first pot of home roasted coffee.

Let me clarify my question. If I asked you whether I should buy a Subaru Forester or a Mercedes SLK then, "it depends on what you want." One is a sport ut, the other a sports car. You wouldn't buy the SLK to go skiing; you wouldn't buy the Forester to impress the chicks. However, if I ask you which is the better car, clearly the Mercedes beats the Subaru, hands down, in terms of quality of design, craftsmanship, materials, etc.

From what I read about the Hottop and the Behmor, however, we're not talking SLK v. Forester. It's more like a Suburban v. a Tahoe with custom wheels and the Tahoe is considerably more expensive. What I'm asking is, is the Hottop a Tahoe? If it is then it's not worth the extra expense. From what I read, that is the case.

However, the Hottop's price suggests it's not a Tahoe, but a Cadillac Escalade. In many ways a simlar vehicle but far superior in terms of craftsmanship and quality of materials.

So, if the Behmor is a Suburban, is the Hottop a Tahoe or an Escalade? If they were both $200 which would you buy?

Hmm, none of those vehicles is sustainable, they're all gas guzzlers and will vanish when gas reaches $6/gallon. :)

Tough question to answer. With the current pricing, the answer is a no-brainer. But people experienced in both machines should be stepping up to the plate here and responding.

The Behmor is still too new to know about its durability. But, Joe's service is really amazing. The Hottop had some problems with fires early on but I haven't heard much lately about that, so they probably fixed the problem(s).

What really needs to be done is to have a "roast-off" of the same bean (or beans, in the case of a pre-mixed blend) and proper cupping. I wonder if Tom at SM has done that or has something in the works for that. I heard that the Behmor did well against the Hottop in a recent such "contest" but have no details. Perhaps someone else will chime in.

I want to roast 1lb at a time and not in multiple batches. The Hottop roasts 9oz. The Behmor roasts 16oz. I've never used a Hottop but lots of threads here and elsewhere indicate it does a fine job of roasting beans. My experience with the Behmor indicate it does likewise. For the price of one low-end Hottop I can buy two Behmor roasters with a bit of change remaining.

Neither is a sport ute or a sports car. Green beans go in, brown ones come out. How much are you willing to spend and how much do you want to roast at one time? The big question mark on the Behmor is longevity. We've some number of months to go before we know if the majority of them make it past the warranty.

At $200 for either, it's no contest for me. It's the Behmor. I'll run it once for a pound while the Hottop will be run twice.

I know absolutely nothing about cars, so I can't get in on that analogy, but I have used both roasters, and here are my thoughts:

I've used my Hottop B extensively, and I absolutely love it --- when I upgraded it from the analog to the B (giving me control of temperature and fan), it completely changed everything about my relationship to coffee. I'd been roasting for years on a Fresh Roast, iRoast, and analog Hottop...I felt like I did a pretty good job, and drank some pretty good coffee. But, when I suddenly had control over the roast curve, I realized just how much I'd been missing. Now, I actually can change how a coffee tastes, for the same roast level, depending on the curve --- as I've learned to do that more and more, my coffee quality has skyrocketed. In addition, the extra control has made me think a lot more about specific beans --- how coffees from different regions, elevations, etc. should be roasted differently. There's a lot left to learn, but, seriously, I can't state fervently enough how much the new Hottop controls have changed my relationship to coffee...I'm drinking far better coffee than I ever had, and I find the experience of buying and roasting coffees to be much more satisfying and interesting.

By comparison, I've only roasted on a Behmor a few times, while visiting my father, who recently upgraded to it from an iRoast2. Without a doubt, the Behmor is a nice machine, and we got some good coffee out of it. If it were between the Behmore and the old, analog or digital, Hottop, I'd consider the Behmor an easy choice. However, without hacking the machine (since I don't own one, I haven't watched the hacking threads here, so I'm not sure what people have figured out on this end), it just doesn't offer you a whole lot of control on the roast.

So, the question (to me, at least) is: are you going to use the extra features the Hottop provides? Are you going to really experiment with creating profiles...does that sound like something you'd enjoy or dread? If you'd enjoy it, I think the Hottop is a great choice. On the other hand, if you're not going to extensively use the profile controls, then you'd be paying an extra $400 for better cooling, which doesn't seem like a good deal to me.

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